The benefactors who make it possible for the Missionaries to be trained and to minister are in effect missionaries themselves. They share in the rewards of the mission in a very real way.
Somewhere in Holy Scripture it says that whoever receives a prophet, as a prophet, will receive a prophet’s reward [ed. Matt. 10: 41]. I have always felt that those consoling words should apply with even greater reason to those who provide ministers with the means of exercising their ministry.
They will receive the reward of a minister; the more sublime the ministry, the more its results are of greater significance, the more the work is difficult, the greater will be the reward not only for the minister who zealously fulfils his duties but also for the one who provided the means for him to accomplish it.
Benefactors are thus not just givers of finance, but missionaries in a real sense whom God will repay a hundredfold for their generosity.
You see, Madame, that we do not presume to show our gratitude by simple compliments or words which would hardly amount to thanking you in a Christian manner for the charitable deeds which came from too wholesome a source to be paid in that way. God is the guarantor of our debt. His infinite goodness undertakes to repay it a hundredfold.
Letter to Madame de Servan, 20 August 1818, O.W. XIII n. 15.
Today the Missionary Oblates continue along the same lies:
Faithful to Oblate tradition, the communities will have their heart set on promoting the Missionary Association of Mary Immaculate for the formation of lay people and participation in Oblate spirituality and apostolate. Rule 37b